Ten months in Tours: Nantes and Rennes

I'm about half way through my year abroad now, and just getting started with classes again (no process is ever logical or admin-free in France). But before term started I took a little trip away with Rhianna and Eilish. We started in Nantes and then moved onto Rennes and back to Tours from there. It was so relaxing and a great opportunity as the trains weren't too expensive with our railcards and also because of the time of year both cities were pretty quiet and inexpensive.

We arrived in Nantes in good time and worked out a route that took us past the Castle and Cathedral, through the main squares, and to the river. The Cathedral was quite modern looking and weirdly clean as it was badly damaged in a fire in the 1970s and had to be restored. In many ways it was quite similar to Tours Cathedral, but in my (unbiased) opinion Tours is more impressive. By the river we went to see one of Nantes most distinctive features, a giant wooden elephant, which was unfortunately down for maintenance and missing it's trunk and ears. In season you can ride in the elephant and it sprays water on it's way! The same company had also made an enormous mechanical tree and a sea-themed merry-go-round (I'm not entirely sure what they officially do!). In a completely different tone there is also a slavery memorial by the river, which includes plaques for every ship that passed through Nantes. We also had a look round the shops and cut through Passage Pommeraye which is an old shopping mall, built in the 1840s.

Place Marechal Foch (glorious weather)

Château des Ducs de Bretagne

Cathédrale Saint-Pierre-et-Saint-Paul

The enormous mechanical elephant (under maintenance)

Passage Pommeraye

Place Royale

The Loire

Memorial of the Abolition of Slavery

Théâtre Graslin

Basilique Saint-Nicolas

Église Sainte-Croix

After dinner we watched trashy French TV in the hotel since we were leaving for Rennes pretty early the next morning.
Rennes was amazing, the town was beautiful and and it had a really nice atmosphere to it. Apparently it has a large student population and I can definitely see the appeal. I have to say I was a little jealous of people that get to study there, I'd love to live in Brittany. Apart from a couple of hours of torrential rain we were quite lucky with the weather, and we were able to see a lot. The Cathedral was enormous and on the inside it was quite different to the others we've seen, there was a lot more (dark) colour, and decoration. We also walked through Historic Rennes, went to see the Parlement and the Mairie, did some shopping in the sales, and visited église Saint-Aubin. In the evening we went out for obligatory crêpes, since we were in the land of crêpes, and then had some wine and watched the French version of The Voice. When we headed back into Rennes in the morning we came across the beginnings of a vintage car display/gathering completely by chance which was a nice unexpected addition.
Overall it was a great way to start my second semester here. I hope that we can make the most of our remaining time here and take the opportunity to explore France and the Loire Valley as much as possible :)